1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of communications. More particularly, the present invention relates to a client terminal, such as a set top box, for storing an initial program segment and appending a remaining program segment to provide a video program on demand to a client.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Advancements in communications technology and increased consumer sophistication have challenged the distributors of video programming to provide clients with entertainment services more convenient and accessible than those traditionally made available through cable, satellite, and broadcast television. For example, improving communications infrastructure has resulted in a proliferation of pay-per-view media services in many of the larger broadcast and cable markets. Unfortunately, most pay-per-view systems only permit the client to choose from a relatively small number of video program selections for home viewing, with the selected video programs generally being presented only at pre-scheduled viewing times.
On the other hand, more recent video on demand (VOD) systems allow a client to order a desired video program for home viewing instantaneously. VOD systems are very popular with clients who enjoy being able to watch video programs, whenever they want, without the hassle of going to a video rental store or waiting for a pre-scheduled viewing time, as with pay-per-view systems. Moreover, VOD systems are highly desired by video programming providers (e.g. cable and satellite networks), as they have been shown to significantly increase revenue in the systems in which they are deployed. Unfortunately, VOD systems are extremely capital intensive to deploy at both the video programming distribution center and in the underlying network infrastructure. This represents a significant barrier to mass industry adoption.
For example, typical VOD systems for providing VOD to a client usually include a two-way digital client terminal and a network infrastructure to provide direct connections between the video programming distribution center and the client terminal. In order to accomplish this direct connection, a forward digital channel is assigned to the client terminal for the transport of video programs and a back channel is usually needed for the purchase and control of the stream. Thus, typical VOD systems require bi-directional communication throughout the session. Therefore, a dedicated channel must be created in real-time to each client's client terminal, whenever a client demands video programming. This requires sophistical switching at the network level and sophisticated video distribution system functionality. Accordingly, for each collection of clients, there are several requirements: video distribution systems are required to store the video programming and stream the video programming to a client terminal whenever requested, forward channel switching systems are needed to establish the dedicated channel to the client from the video distribution system, and bandwidth must be allocated from a dedicated range of digital channels. Such infrastructure changes affect the video distribution system, the underlying network (e.g. distribution nodes), and the client terminal components. Thus, to implement a typical VOD system, a video programming provider must undergo major network infrastructure changes and major video distribution system upgrades to support VOD, which can represent a significant capital cost to the video programming provider.
There is, therefore, a need to provide techniques for providing VOD functionality to clients, without requiring the major changes to the video distribution system and network infrastructure required to support today's typical VOD systems.